Can't yet assess Lehman Europe creditor losses

By Olesya Dmitracova

LONDON (Reuters) - The administrators of Lehman Brothers' European arm are poring over $1 trillion (676 billion pounds) of positions and will take a long time to work out how much creditors will get back, they said on Friday.

Administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) warned some creditors were likely to lose money, and said there were about $1 trillion worth of positions at Lehman Brothers Europe, with half a trillion of assets and half a trillion of liabilities.

"The prospect is that some creditors will lose money. How much? We can't determine that for a significant time," joint administrator Tony Lomas told reporters, after a meeting of about 1,000 creditors of Lehman Brothers International (Europe).

"We don't know how much of that asset value will be lost or (those) obligations ... will rise," Lomas said.

Lehman Brothers International is the European unit of Lehman Brothers Holdings, which filed for bankruptcy protection in September.

The unit holds $22.3 billion in client assets, all of which will be returned, said joint administrator Steven Pearson. PwC has already recovered more than $5 billion of assets, he added.

After Lehman Brothers collapsed, Japanese investment bank Nomura acquired its investment banking and equities business in Europe.

It is unlikely that PwC will sell any more of Lehman's European businesses, Pearson told Reuters in an interview after the press briefing.